


a thousand ways for things to fall apart

by fayevsessays



Category: Glee
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-22
Updated: 2011-08-22
Packaged: 2017-10-22 23:02:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 17,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/243545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fayevsessays/pseuds/fayevsessays
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rejecting a boy for a date comes back to haunt Brittany and Santana in a more serious way than they imagined.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> written for a prompt on the glee_angst_meme

If it's a broken part, replace it  
But, if it's a broken arm then brace it  
If it's a broken heart then face it   
(Details in the Fabric - Jason Mraz and James Morrison)

 

Santana wraps her towel around her neck as she finishes the final cycles on the spin bike. She can feel the numbness in her lower body thank her for stopping the hour long torment.

Various Cheerios lounge between pieces of exercise equipment. They look like the poster children for the peak of physical fitness. It doesn’t stop them from working twice as hard as anyone else in half their shape though. And it certainly doesn’t stop Sue killing them in cheerleading practice everyday either.

They’re working at double the rate they usually do, and even that is going to be upped next week, with Nationals round the corner. As of Tuesday the Cheerios lived through Sue’s grueling routine of early morning practice, classes, after-school practice and evenings at the gym. They practically slept in the off campus gym they were there that much. So much so there was a roped off area specifically for them.

Santana smirks and dismounts the bike to head towards the water fountain.

Sue Sylvester may scare the living crap out of Santana, kill her, push her to both physical and mental exhaustion, but she took care of her; she took care of her girls. And they’ve won national and international cheerleading competitions because of it.

Kurt staggers his way off a nearby treadmill and reaches the water fountain first. Santana thinks about pushing him out of the way, but they’re not in Glee and Sue seems to need him to sing as well, so she bites down on her tongue and waits.

His hair is soaked and sticking to the back of his neck and she knows when he sees the state of it in a mirror he’s going to freak out. She smiles about this.

“How was the spin bike?”

Santana raises an eyebrow. Is he actually making conversation with her about spin bikes? Rewind. Is he actually making conversation? With her?

“How was the treadmill?” She fires back, emphasizing the total lack of a point to the questions.

He’s taking an agonizing amount of time to fill his water bottle.

“Right.” It’s half-empty. He looks blankly at her side like she’s missing a leg or something. “Where’s Brittany?”

She is kind of missing a limb when he puts it like that; but she scowls, mostly because she doesn’t know.

“I’m not her keeper.”

Kurt steps aside and Santana shoves her water bottle under the tap. She doesn’t miss his smirk.  
“What?”

“Nothing. It’s interesting...how you still pretend she doesn’t mean everything to you.”

Santana doesn’t like the way he uses the word ‘interesting’. It definitely sounded like he wanted to say ‘cute’ instead.

“Not a word Hummel.” Santana breathes. Her eyes now search out for the blond he’s proclaimed missing. “I still have to strike fear into the hearts of this squad for another half an hour.”

To her surprise, instead of the increase of a smirk, his face droops into a mock-seriousness.

“One day,” His whispers out of the corner of his mouth like he expects her to stop him. “One day, you won’t have to hide her. We won’t have to pretend.”

He twitches his head up and looks down his nose at those surrounding him like they’re oppressing him with their mere presence. Santana switches off the tap.

“Coming from your experience?” She glares around at the curious eyes watching them. “I think it’s best if you keep your mouth shut.”

Kurt holds her stare. He’s right. She’ll never tell him though. Instead she’ll laugh with him as she and Brittany flee this cow town after graduation. They’ve got one more year of high school, one more year of pretending and ditching boys under the pretense of low credit scores, and there’s no way Santana is going to call out what she and Brittany have to face even a chance of what Hummel has faced.

Even if their status as Cheerios and the wrath of Coach Sylvester protects them. There are worse hells than high school. Santana isn’t blind or ignorant to that.

But sometimes she thinks Kurt and Brittany are. And that’s why she protects them. Well, Brittany at least.

Kurt doesn’t reply and Santana takes that as the end of their exchange. She takes a drink and heads towards the gym timetable. She’s been eying the shadowboxing class all week.

And then she sees Brittany on the other end of the gym. Not all at once though; Santana spots her long legs extending from shorts first. Her priorities aren’t straight. Brittany stands with equal weight on each leg, she doesn’t favour either leg - she has perfect posture; Santana expects her to be running out the last of stretches by the stance she’s in.

But she’s not. She’s talking to someone.

Santana’s eyes narrow instinctively and possessively over Brittany’s body as the girl’s blond hair swishes over her shoulder. Santana hasn’t seen the guy Brittany is talking to before.

He’s wearing a staff uniform and sports an untidy haircut. His eyes keep dropping to Brittany’s legs every few seconds without a trace of subtlety. Santana grabs the ends of the towel around her neck and clenches.

He must be new. He has to be new, because even the members of staff that have had minimal contact with the Cheerios, in or out of uniform, know to steer clear of them. And by default they steer clear of Brittany.

Her eyes furiously burn into the back of Brittany’s head, willing her to turn around or move. The Untidy Guy just keeps leering.

Her feet are about two seconds away from marching towards them when Brittany shakes her head vigorously and look over her shoulder. She’s suddenly smiling at Santana in a strange confirming way, like she is aware that Santana is slowly plotting ways to maim the lackey who’s trying to compromise her; and Brittany must think she’s being cute or funny because she’s beaming back at her.

The Untidy Guy isn’t beaming. His eyebrows retreat from his hairline and narrow on her from across the room. He’s sizing her up. Santana nudges her chin up. She is the Queen in this universe. She says ‘jump’, he says ‘how high?’. And from the look of contempt on his face, he knows it.

Santana uncurls her hands from the towel around her neck and beckons Brittany over with a flick of her wrist. Her girlfriend takes an unconscious step towards her and, with a less than enthused ‘bye’ thrown back at the guy, jogs over to Santana.

Santana drinks in Brittany’s bobbing ponytail and grin. A sheen of sweat, that’s oddly arousing, covers her skin. But it’s pierced and tainted by an inaudible movement of Untidy Guy’s mouth. Santana can’t hear him, but she’s good enough at reading people to know what he’s just verbally thrown at them.

“Hey S, are you finished on the bike? How was it?” Brittany relieves Santana of her water bottle and steals a drink. Unlike Kurt, Santana doesn’t mind humoring Brittany’s question.

“It was fun B.” Her eyes watch Untidy Guy slump into a seat in the reception area. He’s still too close for her liking. He watches them.

“So what did your friend want B?” Santana manages to keep the accusatory tone out of her voice. Brittany sneakily takes the towel from around her neck and dabs at her face.

“Oh, he’s not really my friend, I just met him today. His tag said ‘Toby’.” She informs Santana. Her attention is more focused on the beads of sweat on Santana’s face rather than the man who had been talking to her.

’Toby’ Santana remembers.

“What did Toby say then?”

Brittany rolls the towel into a sausage shape and loops it around Santana’s neck again. She checks the attention span of everyone around her before tugging Santana a little closer to her.

“He said he liked how I did my stretches.”

Santana grits her teeth. They always go for the flexibility route.

“Really?”

Brittany nods oblivious to Santana’s discomfort.

“Yeah, he wanted me to show him more.”

Santana actually lets slip a growl that time.

“...But I told him that I was finished with my cool-down. And I can’t really talk while I’m stretching. Too many muscles.”

“That’s alright B.” Brittany smiles at Santana’s reaction. “Did he say anything else?”

Santana watches in his general direction.

“He asked me if I’d stretch with him some other time. And I said no because I only stretch out after practice with you.”

Santana holds her breath.

“And then he asked me if I preferred to stretch with the girl that’s glaring at him...I think that was you Santana,”

No doubt.

“...and I told him we stretch together all the time. We’re teammates.”

Santana’s face hardens. While Brittany might have taken the questions literally there was no way the Untidy Guy had. Judging by the dark expression of rejection on his face, and the word he’d mouthed when Brittany had left, he wasn’t thrilled with the answers.

“C’mon Britt. We’ll take this next class and call it a night.” Santana places her hand on Brittany’s wrist discreetly.

“Won’t Coach know?” Brittany whispers like she expects Sue to jump out from behind something. She probably would know, but Santana has a complaint to file.

“She won’t mind.”

It’s enough for Brittany and a long with the rest of the Cheerios, including a reluctant Kurt, they pile into the shadowboxing class.

The confrontation is familiar, but it irks her. The routine is always the same. Brittany turns the guy down, the guy mopes, Brittany and Santana laugh it off and continue. It should be insignificant. It is insignificant.

But Santana has heard the word ‘dyke’ thrown around other people enough to recognize when someone is saying it.

It’s not as insignificant as it should be. But it’s just a word. And words can’t hurt them.

Santana files the complaint and thinks nothing of it. The next time they arrive at the gym they don’t see him again.

Santana is fine with that.

~

 

They’ve got free passes. It’s two weeks after Nationals when Sue pushes them over and out of the handstands they’re lined up in and tells them they have the weekend to celebrate but to be prepared to sweat everything they eat or drink out on the Monday back.

At first Santana thinks the blow from landing abruptly out of the handstand has made her hear her wrong. They kneel there nervously while the other girls are pushed down in a similar fashion before Sue screams them out of practice.

It was only when they reached the locker rooms, and Brittany had Santana up against a wall, when it sunk in. They had free passes.

She mentally reminded herself to call Puck to get the weekend started before reversing the position she was in and starting the party early with Brittany.

Needless to say Puck wasn’t called until after their private celebrations. He called them out on it too. But he didn’t disappoint, apart from the fact that he invited Quinn as well (mentioning something about them working out their issues post-baby drama), picking them up the next night with enough alcohol to at least numb the pain Sue would put them through on Monday.

The night so far, was progressing well. The parking lot of William McKinley has seen a lot of teens come and go during the day and night, and ironically it is still the safest place for them to binge on snacks that Sue would normally lynch them for and drink without being discovered. Principal Figgins is completely unaware of this fact.

Puck had parked his truck close to the school and out of sight of people on the main road. Bottles are cracked open and the radio is the only noise other than their conversation and increasingly giddy laughs for miles.

Santana can’t really think of a better way to spend a weekend. Other than sex.

“I am too good to you ladies.” Puck jokes from his seat inside the car. Quinn rolls her eyes and refuses the drink he tries to pass her with a look that says ‘Don’t even start’.

“Are you talking to us or to the independent nation of the Lima Cougars?” Santana asks loudly from the bed of Puck’s truck. Brittany giggles into her neck buzzed off the drink being passed around.

Puck throws an arm over the driver’s seat to face them. “It’s a very large nation.”

“It’ll be a nation deprived of it’s main import if you don’t stop.” Quinn mutters in threat of Puck’s manhood. At times like these Santana appreciates Quinn, and then wonders why their friendship is still on the rocks; and then she looks at Puck’s wincing face, and remembers.

“There’s more than enough exports to keep the nation-”

“Okay, I’m drunk, but not that drunk.” Santana raises her hand. She’s admittedly had sex with Puck, and even admitting it was too much to hear, she doesn’t need to be reminded of it. Quinn is already her cautionary tale.

“I like your nation better.” Brittany mumbles into her skin. Puck continues his spat with Quinn and Santana turns to Brittany.

“You do realize that there is no actual nation. Just you.” Santana says. A hand falls on her thigh.

“I know.” Brittany kisses her cheek. “There’s less diplomatic issues too.”

Apparently the use of the word ‘diplomatic’ by Brittany is enough for everyone to stop speaking.

“What?”

Quinn breaks out a wide grin that eases away the frustration she’s just had with Puck. Santana’s glad, there’s enough sexual tension in the Ohio to last a lifetime.

“Just like old times.” Puck comments with a nostalgia he hides with his ego. “Before all this Glee stuff.”

Quinn’s face drops.

“And other important things.” He adds.

Brittany nods. “We haven’t done this since forever.”

Santana can remember the last time. Puck had dragged a newly together Finn and Quinn along with Santana and Brittany around the football field to drink there. Finn had thrown up and Quinn hadn’t touched the stuff so it was mainly Santana and Puck being hysterically funny (in their minds) and Brittany having eye-sex with everyone. Puck hadn’t had a truck back then though.

“Should’ve invited Finn.” Brittany pipes up before taking a sip from Santana’s cup. Luckily everyone’s nervous glances of awkwardness pass by the time she notices.

“Maybe next time.” Quinn forces. Santana reminds herself not to suggest this again for a while. At least until Finn and Berry are on the rocks so there’s no guarantee of her gate-crashing.

Santana shares this through a look to both Quinn and Puck who raise their eyebrows.

“Drinks?” Puck changes the subject and pulls up the bottle their sharing from under the seat. The only sounds in the next few minutes come from liquid being poured into red plastic cups. Quinn refuses again.

“Leave her Puck.” Santana warns lightly. “More for us.”

Brittany rests her head on Santana’s shoulder and pulls her letterman jacket over her body. It’s a cold night, but even if it was snowing or something Santana would be enjoying her free-weekend one way or another.

“I have to say I do not envy you two.” Quinn breaks the silence looking over at Santana and Brittany in the truck bed. They’re still in their uniforms.

“Don’t. Or I’ll regret it early and ruin my lack of guilt.” Santana groans. Quinn grins. Free-passes from Sue are a rarity. The Cheerios don’t have breaks, they don’t have cancelled practices, and they certainly don’t do things half-assed.

Santana has every reason to question Sue’s motives, but she’d rather drink and ignore them.

“Besides we won.” Brittany closes her eyes. “Another trophy for Mr Schuester.”

Santana sniggers remembering the look of horror as they paraded the second Nationals trophy into the choir room to stand next to last years. It towered over the two Sectionals and one Regional trophy Glee had managed to fill in the case as well.

“I think Mr Schuester would rather Sue take it back.” Santana remarks.

“No duh.” Puck spits. “It’s like insulting his profession or whatever.”

“What? That a woman has a bigger trophy than him? Please, did you meet his wife?”

Puck scowls at her, but to Santana’s disgust, his face brightens again.

“Part of the nation?”

“Part of the nation~”

Quinn and Santana share a disgusted groan. “That is revolting.”

“Mr Schuester had sex with that woman. How does that make you feel?”

“Like a boss.”

“You have no morals! How can you even look him in the eye?”

“I have a bigger ‘trophy’ than him.”

“I seriously doubt that.” Both Santana and Quinn scoff.

“Hey! Insulting the import here.”

“S.” The sudden whisper from her shoulder distracts Santana’s immediate attention.

Brittany hasn’t moved against Santana for a few minutes and her head is craned to the from. Santana sees the flash of headlights in the distance.

“Crap is that the cops?” She seethes to the people in the front seats. Puck twists to look as well and Brittany sits up straighter.

“Is it Coach Sylvester?” She asks. Well Santana didn’t think of that.

“I knew this free pass bull was too good to be true.” Puck exclaims throwing plastic cups under the seats. “Pass me your bottles!”

“Quit rummaging! It’s not the cops.” Quinn slaps his bicep and everyone seems to squint forward. “It’s not Sue either. She drives a Hummer, that car looks in danger of falling apart.”

She isn’t wrong. Santana observes how the car teeters to the side as it drives into a space about three down from them. The people in the car are cloaked in darkness. They don’t get out.

“We were here first.” Puck grumbles acting younger than he is.

“Stop being petty.” Quinn snaps. Their interest is focused on the car. Puck switches the radio off.

Santana pulls Brittany closer to the booth of the truck and as hidden out of sight as possible. She doesn’t want to attract too much attention by pulling themselves into the front seats.

“Can you see anything?” She whispers. They’re just faceless shadows from her position. Puck shakes his head.

“They’re moving though.”

“Is it the football team?” Brittany asks. Quinn dismisses the suggestion.

“They’d be louder if it was.”

Santana turns to Puck. “Did you tell anyone we’d be here?”

“Hell no. I didn’t want the gleeks and freaks turning up to have their first taste of beer.”

Santana stares hard at the car. The seats are filled and she guesses its probably four people depending on the size of those inside. It’s making her anxious and Brittany looks at her worriedly.

“Should we go?” She suggests. Santana is about to second the motion in a less obviously bothered way when the car door opens.

A tickling chill pours down her spine and freezes in her ribs.

“Puck start the fucking car.” She snaps. Quinn flinches.

“I can’t your not in the front seat.” He replies. “What’s the deal? I’ll just talk to them.”

Quinn eyes her strangely. Brittany peeks her head from behind her.

“B-”

“Hey it’s that guy.”

That guy slams the door to the other car behind him and faces Puck’s truck. Santana doesn’t even have time to suggest again that they leave when Puck pops open the door.

“Puck-!”

“What’s up guys?” He breeches, with a voice betraying mastery of the situation. He has anything but as three other doors sound out and join the first in stepping out of the car.

“It’s Toby, Santana.” Brittany points out again. Untidy guy leans against his car with his fists stuck under his armpits. Puck says something she can’t hear.

“Who’s Toby?” Quinn asks quickly not taking her eyes away from the guys.

“Some creep I filed a complaint about in the gym.” Santana pulls down the window of the truck’s booth firmly. It makes a noise. “Shit.”

Puck is the only thing standing between four guys that don’t look like they’re here to chat and share camp fire stories.

“Brittany get through the window.” Santana urges.

“I can’t.” Brittany whispers. “I’m wearing a skirt.”

“It doesn’t matter, just-”

If Brittany can get locked in the booth then Santana can stop worrying about her. Untidy Guy was not there by accident. Obviously he wasn’t over Brittany rejecting him. She turns her attention to Puck again.

“-So what I’m saying is, this is our school and as far as I know you don’t go here...”

Santana curses to no one. “How much has he drank? He’s about as useful as a kite in a hurricane.”

Brittany hasn’t moved.

“...you can find the nearest exit over there and I won’t tell my Princi-...Football coach-” Puck changes his authority figure. Santana wishes he’d said Sue Sylvester. At least that had more weight than Coach Tanaka.  
“About your trespassing.”

The guys surrounding Toby gave an uneasy note of amusement. Santana sees Puck clench his fists.

“Seriously.”

“Seriously.” One of the guys mocks.

Usually Puck makes Santana feel safe. He’s not the brightest guy she knows, but he’s one of the strongest and he cares about them enough to try and sort a bad situation out for them.

“How about no.” Toby, Santana recognizes, says. His voice is crackling, like he never passed puberty properly.

Quinn ushers Brittany to make a move through the window. “Britt-”

“I can’t, it’ll rip the skirt and Coach-”

“Hey! Girls!” A booming voice attracts attention to them. Puck takes a step back towards his truck. “Whatchu doing with his douche?”

Santana has the urge to tell them that the douche standing up for them has a nation, but that’s the drink talking.

“I’m serious man, leave. We’re just here drinking because not all of us have neglectful parents.” Puck shoots back to the boys.

“I’m going to kill him.” Quinn mutters angrily.

“Not if they do first.” Santana says.

“Why don’t they leave Puck alone?” Brittany asks confused.

One of the boys closest to Toby makes a provocative gesture to the girls.

“Hey!” Puck yells. “Lay off.”

“You gonna make him?” Toby challenges. His fists are still tucked under his armpits; it’s an odd way for people to stand.

“Look man, you want this place. Fine. We’ll leave.” Puck calmly tries to reason but leaving is obviously the last thing the opposing guys want.

“We didn’t follow you here for you to leave-” Toby comments looking behind Puck. “We came for your bitches.”

Puck steps forward again. “My what?”

“Bitches.” One of them taunts. Santana freezes. No one moves and she desperately wants to see Puck’s face to know what he’s thinking.

Someone scuffs their shoe on the concrete and Puck snaps. He lunges out for Toby with his shoulder, catching his torso and slamming him into his own car. Quinn screams and the others cave in on Puck from all sides.

“Puck!” Santana screeches. She launches herself off the truck’s bed with disregard to her body, with disregard to how drunk or tired she is and pulls on the collar of the first guy she sees.

Her first makes a sickening contact with his jaw that cracks her knuckles. She can hear Quinn screaming and in the split second between her fist pulling back again and someone grabbing her shoulder she forgets about Brittany.

A palm crashes into her chest and knocks the wind out of her. Santana stumbles and scopes the wider area. Puck is back on his feet with a cut running down his head, but he’s standing and still fighting. Toby looks dazed from Puck’s initial spear into his car and there’s a dent where his body connected.

Santana kicks out at the guy who’s palm hit her. She hears with satisfaction his shriek of pain as she puts his groin out of use for the foreseeable future. It doesn’t stop though; something flashes out of the corner of her eye and Santana watches in horror as something attached to Toby’s fist rams against Puck’s skull.

Blood bubbles from the sides of Puck’s recently re-grown mohawk and Santana cries out with a helpless feeling she’s not used to. The guy she punched first is back on his feet and running towards her; Toby brings back his fist again.

“No!” Santana ducks the next punch aimed her way as quickly as possible and responds by swinging her elbow round into his nose. Shadowboxing and cheerleading are saving her life. Sue will never let her live it down. He lets a groan out but forces her against the car. Her back takes most of the impact and before something slams violent on her right arm Santana sees a flash of blond that makes her heart stop.

Her arm feels broken and something, the car door, is flung against it’s hinges and back against her arm with a force too serious for a street fight. They followed them. They followed Brittany. They followed Santana.

“Think you can leave now!” Toby slurs over Puck who’s face, through the tears in her eyes Santana sees, is covered in blood. “Stand up tough guy!”

Santana can’t feel her arm and she can’t tell if her attacker has slammed the door on it again as she’s pushed to the ground. She has to get up.

The glinting on Toby’s knuckles is clear to her now as knuckledusters. That’s why he’d hidden his hands.

Puck spits out something to the floor and Toby lashes out with a kick to his ribs.

“Stop.” Santana blubbers through the bile in her mouth. The blood is making her sick.

“Stop?” Toby sees her laying on the ground and laughs. She doesn’t see what’s so funny.

He doesn’t follow up with another word instead choosing to spit on the floor near her and pull Puck up on his knees. The only uninjured man with them props Puck up and holds back his arms, like it was some sort of game.

Santana expects him to say something but he doesn’t he just punches. Puck’s face twists back and forth with a wet slap and Quinn is screaming and Santana’s one good arm is propping herself up and she’’s dizzy until her feet run her into Toby.

She hears him call her a bitch and a lesbian whore before she gets a taste of what Puck’s felt. Her head explodes in white light and warm red. She can’t hear anything but Quinn’s scream and then she’s falling out of Toby’s grasp because;

Quinn loses her voice and there’s a rapid splatter of metal against untouched skin followed by a crash of a window that sends a body sprawling. Puck falls on his face and Santana cries because he can’t be able to take another hit.

And glass falls from off his back and Santana sees Brittany’s body collapsed on top of him.

She hears sirens.

~

 

Apparently she rides to the hospital in an ambulance. The sirens suggested it though she felts as if she’d slipped in and out of consciousness in the vehicle.

Her head screams and plagues her with the sound of glass hitting the floor, the crash and the splatter, and the lock of blond hair that fell out of Brittany’s hair and in front of her face. Santana can’t remember if she saw Brittany get up.

She can’t hold onto strings of thought past the lack of a feeling other than pain in her arm, or the amount of time she’s been trying to mumble Brittany’s name under her breath or the sound of voices. She hears Quinn’s tone, not her words, and wonders if she called 911.

She can’t see Puck. Her eyes don’t stay open long enough for her to lock on Quinn and she’s moving.

And she didn’t see Brittany get up.

~

 

Sue Sylvester is standing by her bedside with a clipboard in her hand when she wakes up. If she didn’t remember how she got placed in the hospital it would probably be one of the scariest things she’s ever seen.

Quinn flutters at the end of her bed with her red rimmed eyes on her. The pain her her arm is dulled but she doesn’t try to move it.

“Wh-” Her first attempt to speak fails in the face of the dryness of her throat. Quinn, on seeing her awake, rushes to the glass of water on the beside. There’s a straw in it. Santana has never felt more useless.

“Hold it right there Q.” Sue orders and Quinn freezes like she still has to take orders from the woman. Santana wants that drink. “I want to have a little run down with Lopez here before she has the chance to consult a medical professional.”

Santana wants that medical professional. Sue is going to kill her.

Sue crouches down into the seat by her bedside and glares at her, daring to face the other way.

“I have never, in all my years of training and teaching, and stint in the special forces, seen anything like you Lopez.”

The tone of her voice is level and gives nothing away. Sue could be condemning her for all she knew.

“Reckless. Foolish and incompetent. You are a captain.”

Santana feels herself choking dryly. Sue chooses the worst moment to bring that up. Of course, cheerleading trumps the welfare and safety of her friends, how careless of her.

“You’re lucky this hasn’t cost us Nationals. Two of my Cheerios-”

Santana silently begs Quinn to intervene but the girl is paralyzed too.

“-Monteggia fracture. They say you got off lucky in comparison.” Sue bites out and Santana weakly calls out for Brittany again.

“You could have been killed.”

Santana can’t take it all in. They were drinking alone in their school’s car park not long ago and now she’s in a hospital bed with her best friend missing and her girlfriend no where in sight and her cheerleading coach is telling her she could have died.

“They were bigger, stronger, and had weapons. What were you thinking? Do you not listen to me during the weekly Art of War sessions I force you to sit through?” Sue just keeps coming and her words wash over Santana and drown her in guilt.

“If you only know yourself, but not your opponent, you may win or may lose.” Quinn states like she’s never missed a lesson.

“Outstanding Q, now can you tell Santana exactly why she lost?” Sue’s smile is anything but real. Quinn pauses and thinks about the next line.

“They were drinking?” She offers unsure. Sue sits back in the chair.

“If you know neither yourself nor your enemy, you will always endanger yourself.”

Santana feels like they’re making her out to be a fallen soldier. She’s just a cheerleader. She’s just a girl who wanted to have a free weekend. Not a bloodbath.

“Now I know you think I talk a lot of crap but I know I’ve taught you better than to run in headfirst and risk worse injury than this.” Sue’s face hardens but it’s shows more emotion than Santana thought possible.  
“It was brave. But it was incredibly stupid Lopez. Puckerman may not have the brains to stay out of a fight but he can handle himself.”

Sue flicks her wrist and Quinn takes that as her cue to lower the water to Santana. The water hits her throat and her head and cools.

“If you weren’t incapable of moving already I’d put you out of commission myself.” She adds. The clipboard is placed back onto the bed. Quinn pulls the cup away.

“Are they okay?” Santana gasps out. She can hear beeping from the sides of the room that weren’t present before. Quinn doesn’t speak, she looks to Sue pleadingly.

“They’re alive.” Santana’s heart has a fit at the dramatic tone Sue tells her, as if she wasn’t worried enough, like they’re barely hanging on or something.

“Puckerman is passed out down the hall getting stitches in that thick head of his. Lucky he doesn’t have much in there so his skull cushioned the blows.” Sue dictates. Santana can see the blood pouring over his face again and his eyes reaching for hers. “He has a concussion.”

“What about Brittany?” There’s no trace of calm in her voice now. If her throat allowed it she’d be hysterical. Quinn comes around and laces her fingers in Santana’s. Her good arm. Santana swallows a sob and hopes that Quinn isn’t cushioning the news.

Sue crosses a leg over her knee and rests her hand on her head. It’s about as vulnerable as Santana has ever seen her.

“She’s in surgery.” There isn’t a sugarcoat or reference to Sue’s life in anyway when she says it. Santana stops breathing. “She’s perfectly stable though.”

Quinn squeezes her hand. “She was awake in the ambulance. She was asking for you.”

Sue doesn’t offer any further explanation. Santana assumes they don’t know yet.

Santana clasps her fingers back. She’s haunted by the blank look on Brittany’s face when she crashed on top of Puck. Santana couldn’t stay awake long enough to call her name.

“These characters you encountered at McKinley,” Sue pulls another sheet of paper from her red tracksuit pocket and unfolds it. The writing on it is deep enough to imprint on the other side, though Santana can’t read it. “Which Quinn has kindly given a description of to the Ohio PD, are going to be rounded up in the next few hours.”

“How can you be so sure?” Santana forces out. A smirk appears on Sue’s face.

“I have some friends from back in the forces who were only two happy for me to let them loose on a couple of thugs with a penchant for hate crime.” Sue turns the paper over and Santana recognizes her handwritten complaint against Toby at the gym. “It appears that after you pulled the rug on his harassing of Brittany, the gym tossed him to the street. That coupled with her rejection of his lewd and underdeveloped sexual advances obviously spurred him against you.”

Santana feels anger burn in her chest.

“Puck was right.” Quinn jokes. “Insult a man’s trophy...”

“I’m going to pretend to understand that.” Sue waves off. “This complaint, along with the evidence that now resides in the car he owns, the knuckledusters found at the scene and the fact there are three of you looking like death; is enough to send this troubled homophobe down for a long while.”

“What if it doesn’t?” Quinn approached. They still lived in Lima, hate crime convictions were a rarity.

Sue tucked the complaint inside her pocket again. “Then we have two options; I know someone more annoying and without social graces that would gladly put us in contact with her Dad’s local branch of the ACLU...”

She lets the familiarity of the sentence sink into them both before continuing with a confident smirk.  
“Or we charge on plain assault with a side of grievous bodily harm, we can push it up a bit.”

Santana winces as she tries to move her fingers.

“Wouldn’t do that if I were you.” Sue comments. Her posture is stiff and she looks agitated. But Santana would rather she was here than her parents.

“When does Brittany get out of surgery?” Santana asks in hope of an answer. She doesn’t care if she has to have someone carry her, she’s going to be waiting outside her room.

Quinn looks down at her watch. “It’s 2 am now. They took her in about 40 minutes ago, you’ve been unconscious for an hour.”

“I want to see Puck.” She says mostly to Quinn. Sue stares down at her inquisitively and it starts to sink in, they attacked them because Brittany rejected him because she was with Santana. Because of Santana. It’s her fault.

Sue stands abruptly and moves the chair back. “I’ll point him through after the nurses see you. Apparently the doctor needs to tell you stuff I’ve already explained to you. Who’d of thought?”

Sue leaves and Quinn waits outside while a trained medical professional, as Sue called them, briefly explains the state of her arm and the serious fracture caused by the repeated slamming of a car door to her forearm. He doesn’t tell her that she was reckless, he doesn’t talk her through the art of war and he doesn’t advise her on a plan of action for getting Toby and the rest of her attackers put away. Sue was probably more helpful in general.

They let Quinn back in and several nurses return to explain how lucky she is; how lucky she is that her arm won’t have to be surgically repaired, at least not as far as they can tell; how lucky she is that Quinn called an ambulance, how freaking lucky-

They fit her with a cast that forces her arm into a 90 degree angle and tell her that she’s not going to have it off in the near future. Sue will make her come to practice anyway.

All the while Quinn waits patiently and observes the range of emotions Santana’s face flickers through.

She’s given something for the pain and instructions on how she’ll have to manage her injury. But they don’t sign her out.

“None of us are allowed to leave.” Quinn tells her when they’ve left. “The police are after Toby and once they get him they’re sending officers to get statements from us.”

“Shouldn’t they do that now?” Santana asks. It’s logical.

“Sue bullied them otherwise. Saying everyone needed to be tracking them down.” Quinn’s eyes are still red but she gives Santana a weak smile. “I think she wanted to give you a chance to rest and catch up without having to relive it so soon.”

“What about you?” Santana motions. “Did she give you a chance?”

Quinn ducks her head. “I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

She trembles and it shakes the bed.

“I didn’t do anything.” Santana sees the guilt in Quinn’s eyes. “I saw them beating the...hell out of you both and I didn’t move. I didn’t stop Brittany from getting out to try and pull that guy off you-”

It breaks Santana a little more, she needs Quinn to pull it together for her, because she can’t be strong for them both.

“You called 911.”

A tear falls.

“Yes.” Quinn admits it as eagerly as she would a crime.

“So you’re the reason everyone is now in the safe hands of this hospital?” Santana adds. Quinn sniffs.

“Yes.”

“Then you did something.”

Quinn looks ready to deny it all again. Santana can’t fault her for not doing more. She shouldn’t have engaged in a fight she knew she probably couldn’t win drunk. She shouldn’t have left Brittany. She shouldn’t have drank. She shouldn’t have done a lot of things.

“Okay.” Quinn’s shoulders jerk as she restrains herself from crying again.

There isn’t a lot of room next to her, and she hasn’t given Quinn any form of comfort in over a year, but Santana shuffles over and pulls on Quinn’s hand. The blond shares her pillow and mutters nonsensical apologies while Santana takes strength from Quinn’s closeness.

It’s okay.

~

 

Quinn is still spread out beside her when Santana opens her eyes and spots Puck feeling his way into the room and into the bedside chair.

She stares at him from over Quinn’s shoulder. His face is a mess of stitches and dried blood. Santana’s eyes map out bruises over bruises and dents - knuckle shaped dents - in the side of his head. He looks at her distraught face and smiles, as he does his lip splits open again.

“Your a fucking dumb ass.” She hushes over Quinn, who sleeps on. She can’t stop how her voice cracks over the sight of him. His eyes are ringed in black and the right eye is so swollen Puck can’t seem to open it.

But he smiles.

“A dumb ass, no.” He holds up a finger and grabs something from behind his back. His hands fiddle with something over his head and then he pulls his hands away. “A dumb ass with an eye patch, yes.”

Santana wheezes out the self-depreciating humor as best she can.

“Sue sent me in. They’ve cleaned me up but I can’t go home.” He murmurs aware of Quinn. “Concussion isn’t too bad, I have to come back in for tests and shit.”

Santana nods, she’s heard as much from Sue. She quietly tells him about her arm and doesn’t miss the way his fists, bloodied, still clench.

“I didn’t know he had dusters.” Puck grits. “Asshole.”

“I’m sorry.” Santana surprises him by saying. “But I told you to drive away.”

Puck’s barely visible eyebrows twitch upwards.

“You did.” He remarks.

The silence finds them again and Santana gazes at Quinn for a minute before turning back to Puck. His eyes are on Quinn’s back.

“Has anyone said anything about B yet?” Santana desperately asks. “Sue said she was in surgery.”

The weight of the word slams onto her chest. Surgery. It’s undisguisibly serious. More serious than Santana’s injury, than Puck’s concussion; Brittany, who’s blow from Toby Santana didn’t even see, was more serious than the entire assault on Santana and Puck put together.

And it was her fault.

“I saw Sue walk by after she got me. I think she’s trying to get in contact with B’s parents.” Puck informs. Santana shakes her head in frustrations.

“It’s no use, they only understand broken bits of English and usually Brittany is there, or her sister to translate the rest.” Santana curses Brittany’s dutch parents because she has no one else to curse.

“Well, what do we do?” Puck needles. “Your parents?”

Santana passes that idea. “No, they’re staying at my Grandma’s and won’t be back in time. I’ll call them but I’ll have to get in contact with Britt’s sister.”

“I’ve told my Mom, but I told her to come in the morning. I may have left out a few details.” Santana can only imagine what. “But I couldn’t...”

He looks pointedly at Quinn and Santana realizes that they can’t expect Quinn’s parents to form any sort of emotional support.

“This sucks.” Puck exhales and touches his face.

“We’ll figure out the rest when the police tell us they have the bastard.” Santana comments. “And after I’ve seen B.”

Puck nods in understanding and their eyes become familiar with the slow ticking hands of the clock before the aftereffects of the night force them back into sleep.

~

 

Breakfast was the least appealing thing to Santana upon waking up. It was amplified by the fact Santana couldn’t eat on her own with the numbness in both arms caused by her painkillers, meaning Quinn had stubbornly fed her the soggy cereal she’d acquired from the cafeteria.

In the past Quinn would have laughed, Puck would have teased and Santana would have refused. But no one upsets the order.

Santana’s legs hang off the side of her bed and she forces the breakfast incident out of her mind. She’s listening to the dial tone again over her phone. Another call to Brittany’s parents, another voicemail left, another frustrated minute sat putting off a call to her own parents.

“I could call them if you want?” Puck offers. “Not now, but when you go to see B, or after. Just so they know what’s up.”

Santana nods dumbly and throws the phone on her bed. Quinn is somewhere fetching a nurse to find out whether or not they can finally see Brittany. A doctor informed them not long after breakfast that her surgery went well and she’d been placed in a room. But visiting hours applied and Santana had been waiting snappily since 6.

“I hate waiting.” She mutters for the sake of it. Puck shrugs with her. She’s talking mainly about Brittany, but about the police as well.

They’d passed through as well for their statements without so much as a hint to whether they’d apprehended Toby or his thugs. Puck had almost had to restrain her from getting up to force the information out of them. Injured or not, she still had a mean high kick.

Her cast itches and her arm is in a state of prickling pins and needles because she can’t move it. What would possess someone to slam someone’s arm in a door? Her teeth grind just thinking about it and ghostly pain flares on the point of impact. She can’t even remember the door being opened.

Hope echoes in the way of footsteps in the hall. Santana shifts to hide her phone and edges closer to the side of the bed. Puck stands awkwardly and waits. Quinn’s head charges in followed by the rest of her body and a member of staff. She looks caught off guard by the amount of people in Santana’s room before stating that they can see Brittany.

“She’s in a separate ward.” She tells them. Santana doesn’t care, she wants to leave now. “And because she’s only just come out of surgery I’m afraid only one of you can be in with her at a time.”

There’s no question that Santana is first. Quinn and Puck flag each side of her on the journey to the ward. Santana barely realizes they’re there. All she can fathom is that she’ll be able to see if Brittany is okay.

The door is closed when they get there. The nurse holds up a finger.

“Just one.” Santana nods. “The Doctor will be round in about fifteen minutes to answer any of your questions. Are any of you her family or partner?”

Santana hears Puck almost object but she throws him a warning luck. “I am.” She states boldly.

The nurse looks unconvincingly at her appearance and frowns.

Quinn steps in.

“She’s my sister.”

The blond hair and pale skin seems to go over better with the nurse’s thoughts and she nods sharply. “Is there anyone we can contact for her?”

Santana tunes out Quinn response and bitterly wonders about the things she’s heard about hospital staff refusing to acknowledge partners of the same-sex. She really doesn’t have time for that bullshit.

“Alright, Dr Morrison will be around shortly.” The nurse leaves.

Santana’s hand grips around the handle of the door. She takes a breath and prays.

‘Please let her be okay.’

She opens the door.

~

 

Santana doesn’t frequent hospital rooms. Usually she’s the one putting people in the hospital. She’s planning on continuing that trend when she finds Toby. And then she plans to hand him over Sue Sylvester.

He’ll be less of a man, literally, when it ends.

“Hey.” She calls out as she walks into the room.

The place is awash with light, most of which is painted over Brittany, and it’s warm. Brittany is tucked into bed, with her neck and face turned to the window on the opposite side of the room. Santana bites her lip and tries not to snap her fingers. Brittany’s attention span isn’t fantastic but Santana isn’t about to patronize a girl barely out of surgery and one that also stopped a guy from punching her teeth in.

The evidence to this is in the form of a tightly pinned bandage around Brittany’s head. As far as accessories Brittany has had in her hair before, which includes a lobster, the bandage is relatively tame. Or it would have been if the bandage was just for show and not the sign that confirms just how serious everything is.

Santana wishes the doctor would hurry up already.

“Britt...” Santana works up the courage to walk around the side of the bed. “Hi.”

She can’t find words to describe the expression on Brittany’s face. It’s unusual because Santana is well versed in all her shades of confusion, joy and sadness. Brittany’s raised eyebrows and open mouth are stuck between shock and surprise.

One side of the bandage, on the right side of her skull, is padded more than the other. Santana’s eyes narrow. That’s where Toby’s hit landed.

The sounds of wet splattering and shattering glass jingle in her ears. Unwanted echoes, things that she doesn’t want to hear when she’s there to take care of Brittany, taunt her.

The girl’s confusion isn’t voiced but gradually the undetermined visage turns to something. And that something is directed at Santana’s casted arm. The cast is hot under her watch.

Santana runs her fingers over it and wonders how much Brittany remembers. How much she can recall.

Santana shrugs as much as she can without drawing out too much pain. Through the action she notices how intensely concerned Brittany seems.

Speckles of blood dot over her bandages. Like something had rained down on it.

“It’s not too bad.” Santana murmurs. She brings her right arm as far away from her body as possible. “It’s a good thing I’m left handed.”

It’s as close as a joke as Santana can get but Brittany doesn’t even try to smile. Instead she keeps opening and closing her mouth like she’s debating whether or not to say something to her. Santana wants to hear her. She wants Brittany to say something; even if it’s about gay sharks or to tell her she tried to make out with her doctor.

Yet her silence is the only thing keeping Santana’s mask of strength intact. She knows it would only take a word to unhinge her before she’s managed to say her piece. And she’d like to do that before she turns into some kind of blubbering mess. Like Quinn when she was hopped up on baby-hormones.

Brittany frowns.

“Sorry.”

The frown doesn’t leave.

“I’m sorry I didn’t get here sooner. I’m sorry I-” Santana drags the only chair in the room as close to Brittany’s bed as possible. She winces at the sound the legs make against the floor. “They’ve only just told me where you are. I would’ve been here-”

Sooner.

She wishes she had flowers or one of those lame ‘get-well-soon’ teddy bears or something to take away the affliction in Brittany. It shouldn’t be there.

“Quinn and Puck are waiting outside.” Santana mumbles. Her eyes refuse to rest on Brittany, studying her face and the changes it makes every few seconds. “They’ve been freaking out. It’s embarrassing.”

Brittany shifts her head closer towards her along her pillow. Santana feels stupid for moving attention away from them.

“...I’m sorry. I just...how could you?” Santana quickly alters her question and ignores the bubbling terror present in her voice. “Why? Why didn’t you just stay in the truck?”

Brittany only frowns deeper, like she doesn’t understand why Santana is questioning her motives, and she sighs.

“...I told you to get in the front. I didn’t want you to, you shouldn’t have got involved.” She firmly asserts.

In her mind she knows why Brittany got out of the truck. It’s for the same reason Santana did for Puck; she saw her in trouble. She saw Santana in pain.

But Brittany isn’t like Santana. She doesn’t know how to fight.

“You don’t know how scared,” Her throat contracts from invisible hands choking her. They squeeze painfully until she can’t see through her watery eyes. “You scared me so much. I couldn’t see you and he was on me. Me, B. You should have-”

Santana roughly wipes her eyes, letting them sting and focuses back on the distress in Brittany’s face.

“He was after you after what- I can’t even...”

She has to pause. Her head is heavy and she needs Brittany to object, to say or do something.

Santana has been plagued in the scarce sleep she’s embraced by all of the unspeakable things that could have happened if those bastards had gotten Brittany. What if she’d been alone?

Sickness pools in her stomach. It’s only neutralized when she lifts her head again. Brittany timidly pushes her hand through the hospital bed’s bars. Reaching.

Santana threads their fingers impatiently and revels in the feel of skin contact. She’s not unscathed but Brittany is there.

She takes four short breaths.

“Don’t ever scare me like that again. Don’t. I don’t ever want to see you like this again.” She won’t let this happen ever again. Santana’s left hand tingles with pins and needles. “I care about your safety more than mine. I can handle that. I can. And...”

Brittany silently stares, in the direction of her lips, but unmoving. Her concentration on Santana’s words is unlike anything it used to be and there’s more expectation to her words with the attention.

“...it hurts.” Santana steadies herself. “It hurts me when you hurt because I love you.”

Santana is rushed internally as she says it out loud. She doesn’t say it often. Not in public either. The rare utterances for Brittany’s ears only were private and secret and for her only. Hate for her lack of expression comes in full force as she sits in hindsight.

How did she not say it more? How can she justify not saying it to Brittany every time she looked at her?

Her hand trembles. The trace of ‘I love you’ is on the tip of her tongue. A sweet tasting admission. She said it.

Brittany’s hand doesn’t move.

Santana’s head snaps up. The nausea whirls aimlessly again. Something is off. Something is off.

Brittany’s face is pale and apologetic. Her lips don’t move and the frown she’s worn since first seeing Santana hasn’t left her face throughout the entire time Santana has been speaking.

Panic flutters in her ribcage. Attention flickers to the bandages, to the monitors Brittany is hooked up to, Brittany’s almost-too-blank-contemplation, to the charts she can’t read. Something is wrong.

“Britt?” She asks tentatively. An ice cold feeling of dread settles inside her.

Her girlfriend’s lips seem to move in a slowness to pronounce her name. It’s not even a whisper. Santana thinks butterfly wings make more of a noise.

But it’s the whisper that hits her harder than anything; harder than any of the punches she took last night, harder than Cheerios practice, harder than the insults she’s flung or the few falls she’s taken.

Santana feels the wind knocked out of her as her mind chains together a reel of Brittany’s expressions. And how the more she spoke, the more desolate Brittany became.

And then Santana realizes.


	2. Chapter 2

~

 

Dr Morrison has a smug face that reminds Santana of Mr Schuester, the only difference being she can punch him without being suspended from school.

“I’ve walked into a lot of dysfunctional places in my life but your ward? Takes the frikken trophy.” Santana backs him towards the wall with a murderous scowl that can’t be cooled off. “You let that nurse lead us in there knowing! You knew! You knew and you didn’t think to stop her?”

She’s furious. Her right hand keeps trying to pull away from it’s forced 90 degree angle and sends shooting pains in regular intervals. This keeps her on edge.

Dr Morrison wears an unconfident coat of calm. Despite him towering over her, she’s somehow staring him down.

“Ms Lopez, please calm down.” Nurses from the end of the hall keep glancing nervously in their direction. Santana guesses they’re waiting for a signal to step in and pull her off him if she does take him to the ground. Her fist twitches at the tempting idea.

“I don’t think so specs” Livid rage intoxicates her. “I’m pissed off beyond all measures as it is. Just be thankful I don’t have the use of both my arms.”

She doesn’t even care if they refuse to treat her. He’s an incompetent fool and an idiot and he didn’t tell her. He didn’t tell her.

Santana jerks head forward threateningly when Quinn and Puck suddenly round the corner. Puck jumps to conclusions at her intended movement.

“Santana!”

Quinn picks up her pace in a way she’s still unused to.

“What’s going on?” Quinn swiftly steps her body between the intimidated doctor and Santana. “Santana?”

“This medical school loser thought it was perfectly a-ofucking-kay to tell that nurse we could see Britt-” Santana snaps like a rabid dog. There’s a wildness in her veins that gives her flashes of Toby and his gang circling Puck. She feels it all over again.

Puck inhales her anger and forces his own grimacing face into the equation. The swelling of his cheeks makes him look like a demented chipmunk. “What’s wrong with Brittany?”

Dr Morrison desperately tries to reassert some form of control. “Ms Lopez please.”

“Dude, what’s the deal?” Puck addresses him clearly, not liking how he was brushed off. A sweep of affection for Puck follows in Santana’s agreement:

“That’s something I’d like to know. Along with the name of that nurse!”

Quinn flashes her a look of annoyance far to tame to have any effect. “Santana, quiet!”

“Ms Lopez. I’m sorry, but I can’t disclose the details of your friend’s condition-”

Santana hates the American hospital service. “I’m. Her. Girlfriend.” She’s not just a friend. She’s not just a friend.

His face plasters with a badly hidden sneer that he regrets when Santana lunges at him. “You’re not immediate family.”

“Screw your policies!” She growls out. Puck is suddenly at her side.

“Santana, chill.” He hushes. She almost sobs at the way he nods towards Brittany’s open door.

Quinn is facing her now. “Brittany, Santana.” She aims in a low and painfully understanding voice. “You have to keep quiet or she’ll hear you. She doesn’t like it when you-”

And then she snaps. Pent up rage over her injury, over Toby, over this holy-than-thou doctor and Brittany break the elastic hold she has over her temper is released in a single bursting phrase.

“No! She can’t!”

The atmosphere compresses and Santana feels like they’re overlapping in her space. She pants out her words with a bitter twang and with all the pouring leftovers of her uproar. She repeats them in her head.

Quinn’s fists clench. “Santana...”

“Ms Lopez.”

Claustrophobia shuts her down. They’re all bearing down on her. They’re not listening to her. They’re not hearing what she’s saying.

“Didn’t you hear what I just said?” The words drive a knife into her gut. She reels on Dr Morrison, accusing and unforgiving, who can’t seem to interrupt her.  
“She can’t.”

Puck’s arms surround her and press down on her arm. It’s in the middle of the agony she experiences when his arms constrict on her cast that she realizes how close she is to jumping at the startled doctor.

Through her shaking she sees Quinn’s suspicion stir and finally step up to the doctor in the calm way Santana can’t manage.

“Dr Morrison? I’m Quinn.” She shoots a reassuring glance at Santana who’s lip quivers and hopes Quinn can just handle it. “I’m Brittany’s sister.”

The lie is so obvious and the incompetence of the hospital is further proven, in Santana’s mind, when the doctor takes an approving look at Quinn’s physical attributes and nods.

He nods. Santana grits her teeth.

“Ms-” He glances down at the chart in his hand for Brittany’s last name. “Er-”

“Don’t try to pronounce it.” Quinn suggests. Santana can’t even pronounce it.

“Would you like to talk in my office?” He peeks at the still volatile Santana warily being held back by Puck, then to Quinn.

Santana doesn’t hide her victorious smirk when the Fabray nerve of steel denies him and shakes her head.

“It’s fine.”

Dr Morrison, who obviously didn’t expect that response, coughs. Every second he stalls, the more Santana wants to kick him in the shins until they bleed.

“Um, okay.” He flips over pages on his clipboard searching. Quinn breathes out and locks her eyes with Santana, who wishes for her share of calmness, but knows there won’t be a moment of calm until he breaks the news.

“Ms...Brittany was sent into surgery upon arrival last night after we visually assessed her injuries. We’ve taken more scans since to confirm the initial assessments.”

Santana doesn’t like the plurals in his words.

“The primary collision to her skull was amplified by the presence of knuckle-dusters on the suspect; as shown in the prominent lacerations on the surface; and resulted in quite a significant fracture to her skull.”

Santana’s stomach drops. He fractured her skull.

“What else?” Santana can’t believe she’s asking. She doesn’t even know if she can handle anything else.

Dr Morrison looks at her with sympathetic eyes.

“The appearance of mass bruising to the un-fractured left side of her skull along with traces of glass embedded there, were caused by the secondary impact of Brittany’s head falling into the car window after the primary impact.”

Her chest tautens and feels lightheaded. It keeps coming. It keeps getting worse.

“...only emphasized the damage during surgery...”

“Get to the point.” Santana spits out. Puck whispers clumsily in her ear. It doesn’t soothe her. She can’t stand the sound.

“The severe head trauma she sustained from the attack has caused permanent damage to her cochlear nerve. This means that Brittany’s brain isn’t receiving the electrical impulses necessary for her...”

He talks too slowly. Like their children. Like they don’t understand what he’s implying. Puck’s hands drop from her shoulders whereas Quinn’s rise to cover her mouth. Santana isn’t as braced for the harsh truth as she thought she was.

“...to hear.”

She is motionless. It’s why Brittany didn’t turn to her when she came in. It’s why she didn’t answer her when she spoke. It’s why she didn’t say ‘I love you’ back.

“...It’s called nerve deafness.”

It’s because she’s deaf.

Quinn doesn’t reach her in time and Santana is falling. She’s sliding to the ground, unable to register anything, not even the brittle impact her knees have on the floor. Or the doctor’s regretful eyes. The news blocks them out. There are no voices. There are no sounds. She can’t even hear the choked scream that spews from her own mouth.

It’s deadly quiet and Santana cries.

This is all Brittany can hear.

~

 

Santana doesn’t hear it directly from Dr Morrison. Quinn repeats it to her, stuttering from start to finish like Tina used to, about what this means for Brittany.

It’s permanent. They can’t do anything for her.

Brittany has untreatable nerve deafness in both her ears; though according to the doctor the left isn’t as bad. Maybe 80 % loss.

It’s too little of a percentage for Santana to draw hope from.

“It won’t effect her balance.” Quinn has tears glistening on her cheek. Santana spitefully questions the reason she’s even crying in her head. It’s not happening to her.  
“She’ll still be able to dance, and come to school.”

Speech therapy. Lip reading. Deaf culture. All words that Santana has never taken a second to think about, will now slowly strip the last sense of normality away from her. Away from Brittany.

Her mind buzzes. Quinn stops and looks to the door.

“Go to her.” She begs.

Santana pinches herself and doesn’t wake up.

 

~

 

The steps she takes back into Brittany’s room is the hardest thing she’s ever had to do. Harder than anything Sue Sylvester has thrown at her. Harder than anything she’s ever prepared herself for.

She wants it to be her.

Brittany is facing her when she comes back in. There’s a firm and unconfused look on her face that doesn’t suit her. She shouldn’t have to go through this.

Santana bites at her lip and her chest constricts in tight seconds. She usually can’t breathe when Brittany’s in a room, but Santana feels like she’s going to die.

Her knees shake. Her shoulders slump. Her eyes sting and there’s a huge pressure behind them.

But Brittany looks up at her like there’s nothing bad in the world. She doesn’t even hold a fault at her leaving abruptly. Her gleaming face is streamed and stained in silver marks left from tears; looks up at her like Santana is her world.

Santana tries not to look down like her world is falling apart.

“B...” She chokes.

She crumbles.

~

 

Santana wakes up to the sound of sobbing.

For the first time in hours it’s not her own tears. It’s not the grunting admissions from Puck either, nor the muffled weeping Quinn stuttered out.

They’re quietly tucked up on the armchair; Puck holding Quinn asleep in his lap.

It’s Brittany.

Her body shudders and shakes in the fashion that follows crying. Brittany makes whimpering noises that Santana’s heard before; when they sang to Mr Schuester, when the penguins disappeared from the zoo, when Quinn was kicked out-

Brittany’s crying and Santana panics. What does she do? What can she do?

‘She can’t hear me.’ Santana freezes. ‘She can’t hear me.’

Brittany is in isolation. She’s trapped in a world Santana’s words and soothing sounds can’t reach. Sounds that include music, that include singing, that include the sounds of ducks in hats and Single Ladies. It’s reality crushing down on Santana and drilling into her heart.

Brittany lets out a loud whine that tugs Santana out of her own head. Brittany needs her. Brittany is going to need her.

Her hand finds Brittany’s hip.

It’s just like any other night, except for the part were Brittany abruptly jerks around. Her eyes are wild and scared. Santana moves and her hands follow. They trail upwards and cool over Brittany’s fear. Ribs and arms stop trembling and mumblings from Brittany’s mouth turn into words that break Santana in syllables;

“-orry, just leave me. I’m sorry.”

Santana’s tears pour down again. She’s raining on command and shaking her head. No. She won’t.

Brittany keeps telling her to leave. She keeps telling her to go. Apologies that Santana should be offering are falling from her lips. It’s wrong.

“No.” Santana shakes her head swiftly. “No.”

Brittany’s eyes squint and more wetness spills. Santana slows her mouth movements and says it again; “N-o.”

It almost provokes another onslaught of begging. Then Santana’s hands hit the spot.

They cup gently around Brittany’s skull. They cover Brittany’s ears like earmuffs. She’s careful. The bandages around Brittany’s head, for her fracture, are thick but Santana handles her delicately. It’s her girl. She has to.

“N-o.” Santana repeats. This time her head is squared and Brittany doesn’t move. Whether it’s the determined look on Santana’s face or the fact Santana is touching her is undetermined.

She wills Brittany to hear her; She won’t leave her. She will never leave her. Santana is never going to let anything happen to her again. She won’t let anyone hurt her. She won’t leave her. She won’t let this stop them. She’s getting them out of this town. She’s getting Brittany away from this place. She loves her. She loves her. She loves her.

Santana doesn’t realize she’s saying it until Brittany’s fingers wipe at her cheeks.

“I love you. I l-o-v-e y-o-u.”

Whispers meet her. Brittany is saying it too. She’s missing off the start of the words but Santana can hear her clearer than ever.

“I love you.” She needs to keep saying it. “I love you.”

Brittany needs to learn this, she needs to know when Santana is saying it, she needs to know that she’ll never stop loving her.

Somewhere in the spaces between the words Brittany kisses her. Santana breathes her in, she tells her and kisses her; she says, she acts; she teaches, she learns.

“I love you.”

In the midst of their kisses and the sounds of slumber Santana remembers something.

“One day, you won’t have to hide her. We won’t have to pretend.”

 

“You’re my everything. You’re my everything. I’m sorry.” Brittany’s eyes slide closed and Santana’s lost her for the night. “You’re my world, B.”

She doesn’t want to pretend anymore.

~

 

The next day Santana decides that she can’t just curl up against Brittany for the rest of their lives and wonder ‘What if?’. Even if Brittany isn’t awake and Quinn is looking at her with sympathetic eyes enough to make her want to stay exactly where she is.

She can’t.

Santana tells Quinn to swap places with her; so that Brittany still wakes up with someone, even if that someone isn’t her, while Santana acts.

Quinn shakes Puck awake and helps Santana untangle herself from the long legs and draping arms the night comforted her in. Brittany almost stirs when Santana finally breaks free. There’s a sweeping cold.

“Where are you going?” Quinn asks as she lowers herself into bed with Brittany and let’s Puck arrange their arms. Quinn fills Santana’s former position with a friendly enthusiasm.

Santana can’t pin point. There’s so much she needs to get. She needs clothes. Brittany needs clothes. Food. Parents. Everything and more.

“Supplies.” Puck interrupts. “I don’t think anyone is going to be leaving soon so, yeah, we might as well.”

Quinn nods, she rests her head on the dent in the pillow Santana left and watches over Brittany.

“We’ll be back soon.”

Santana hates herself for noticing how they all whispered. How they forgot, or how easily they acted like Brittany was going to hear them.

She tips a misplaced wheelchair over with her good arm to relieve the stress. Puck follows after her looking even worse in the daylight. His face is a mess of purple.

“You look like shit.” She informs.

“I look like a pirate.” The joke isn’t as funny as it was before. They speed down a flight of stairs and out of the hospital. All the while Santana complies the list of things she needs.

She needs;

“Santana.” Puck booms.

She freezes, standing still outside the hospital, and turns into Puck. His chest is hovering near her body and he’s warm. Santana misses him, she misses Brittany, and she misses Quinn. She misses how they were twelve hours ago and how one rejected dick has screwed them up.

“It’s gonna be okay.” And suddenly she’s in his arms. She’s pulled against him and hiding how she’s crying into his shoulder and thinking of how many times Toby hit him. “We’ll get through it. We’ll get through it.”

 

~

 

She doesn’t go home.

Puck calls her parents and tells them everything A to B. Santana can hear their furious and distraught spanish and her Mami weeping. They promise to bring clothes and bring things for Brittany. There’s a gym bag full of Brittany’s pyjamas and things at the bottom of Santana’s bed.

Puck breaks out his bank account and if Santana was herself, if nothing was wrong, she would have been surprised at the modest amount in there.

He shrugs. “Pool cleaning.”

He steers her in the direction of the stores about a mile down from the hospital. They can’t drive there as Puck’s car has been taken away by the police. Even if that wasn’t the case, Santana doubts she could get back in there.

Everywhere is open.

She sets a determined face and pities whoever recognizes her from school. They hit somewhere with food and magazines; Puck piles up everything she so much as glances at, regardless of price, and mutters that he’s stealing the push-trolley to take everything back.

People do stare. They frown and whisper about the state they’re in. Eyes pass over Santana’s bulky white cast and Puck’s eyepatch. They’ve walked out of a trainwreck and into life; and these people don’t get it.

It’s like that from store to store.

Santana’s patience is thin by the time the girl in the last shop asks her if she wants a bag.

She doesn’t want their pity.

“C’mon.” Puck drags her away and Santana clutches the bag under her arm. “The ice cream is melting.”

She follows.

The journey back is shorter though partly because Puck doesn’t want to be stopped for stealing the trolley. The hospital staff seems amused as they wheel it into the lobby and elevators. Santana glares back. It’s not funny.

The second time Santana has to make the walk back to Brittany’s room isn’t as hard as the first. The door is partly open and Quinn is sitting up against the headboard with Brittany’s head in her lap. The sight elicits noises of astonishment from Puck behind her.

“Hi.” Quinn waves before letting her hand run through the ends of Brittany’s hair again. Brittany eyes flutter open and closed.

“Morning.” Puck says in a tone that could only be suggestive. Santana’s throat dries up. All she can manage is to murmur out a ‘Hey’ at Brittany. Her face lights slightly at being directly acknowledged.

Santana can’t even imagine how she’s feeling. She can’t, and that hurts more because they’re meant to understand each other perfectly. She’s meant to understand Brittany better than everyone else.

Puck unloads the bags and Quinn displaces herself. Santana gets a vibe drawing her in to Brittany. She’s hardly aware she’s climbing back into her bed when she knocks her arm.

The pain paralyzes her.

“Ah!” Searing and shattering flares throb from her wrist to her elbow and Santana scrunches her eyes unaware of the terrified concern of the girl below her. “Ahh!”

Brittany resembles a deer in the headlights when the pain resides. She’s the image of Miss Pillsbury.

And Santana can’t even explain.

“Sorry.”

Quinn, who had somehow gotten to her first, berates her; “You scared her. Be more careful! You’re no use if you hurt yourself again!”

Her voice gets pitches too high.

“Sorry.” Santana pronounces. Brittany nods but her hands clumsily come out of the bed sheets to touch the cast on Santana’s arm.

There’s no immediate sounds other than Puck passing out their supplies. Santana stares into Brittany’s eyes. Everything in her face is the same. Everything Santana loves and lives for is still there. She’s still Brittany; she’s still her everything.

Santana just has to make sure everything is enough.

“Puck,” She faces him so that Brittany isn’t confused. “Can you pass me the book?”

He stumbles around looking for the bag Santana had before. It’s probably going to be one of the most important things Santana owns for the next few months.

Brittany glances between them curiously and even Quinn, who is in the middle of scooping out ice cream into paper bowls, peers at them. Santana peers back because ice cream? For breakfast?

The book is heavy when Santana holds it. The cover has little pictures of apples and cartoons on the front, she knows Brittany would take to it better that way, and the words ‘American Sign Language’.

She flips the book so that Brittany can see. It takes a second for her to read it but Brittany gives a little gasp when she does.

When the tears that Santana expects don’t come everyone exhales. Quinn brings out the bowls and Puck falls into a chair. Brittany smiles weakly and let’s Quinn feed her ice cream.

“You’re going to have to teach her.” Quinn mutters, scooping equal amounts of ice cream and sprinkles, to her.

Santana rests the book on her lap and flips open the first page.

“We’re all going to have to learn.” She says leaving no room for argument.

Santana is momentarily distracted by Brittany’s lips and the sprinkles on her tongue.

“We’re gonna need another book.” Quinn suggests and readies another spoon. This time she doesn’t push it towards Brittany.

They’ll need more books. Santana will need her hand to heal. They’ll need DvD’s. Brittany needs to see the doctor again. Her parents. The school will have to be informed. Teachers. Medicine. Cheerios.

The spoon bumps against her mouth.

Brittany giggles at Santana’s startled reaction. Quinn raises an eyebrow smirking. Even Puck, with only one non-swollen eye visible, eggs her on.

They’ll need a lot of things. Santana gives them an eye roll, opens her mouth and eats. But for now, they’ll get through it.

~

 

There’s a reason she and Quinn are on honor roll.

The pages of the sign language book are worn and notes are scribbled in margins.

Santana sits through conversations with doctors with her parents and Brittany and dreads Monday walking into school without her.

Sunday morning comes with weak light through blinds. It illuminates the book and Brittany’s blond hair. Brittany hasn’t spoken much. Santana hasn’t spoken much either.

By Sunday morning Santana can speak.

By Sunday afternoon so can Quinn.

By Sunday night Brittany can ‘hear’. Even if it is in broken twitches of fingers and forgetful signs. Brittany says ‘Hello’ and Quinn cries.

“It’s like dancing...with hands.” Brittany’s voice is louder and raw, unused to not speaking and unable to test her volume. She repeats the ‘Hello’.

Santana kisses her and ignores the way Quinn takes it all in, clinging to that normalcy - that unchanged thing - in the chaos of the new.

~

 

Santana spends her nights at the hospital. School may consume her daylight hours with more questions and fear than before, but the night belongs to Brittany.

Her arm isn’t healed enough to teach Brittany the sign language properly yet but one of the younger doctors sits with Brittany in the afternoons and tries to help.

“He’s not as good.” Brittany says softly. She’s started reading in Santana how loud her voice is through her expressions. Santana loves to hear her voice, she craves it, because though Brittany can’t hear her own voice, Santana can.

“Try again?” Santana opens the book a little shakily and balances it on her knee. She’s trying to get Brittany to practice finger spelling and recognizing phrases like ‘How are you?’ and ‘Good Morning’.

Brittany is propped up against a mass of pillows. Her bandages are loose around her head but Santana can’t see anything. She skims her gaze to the curls of hair that frame Brittany’s face. Brittany’s doctor had told her that apart of her hair had to be shaved off for surgery, but it’d grow back.

Sometimes she thinks she’s stuck in a state of shock. Brittany was hit. Toby fractured her skull. She got hurt.

“S?” Brittany calls to her. When she deems Santana to be focused again she throws up a fist with her thumb curled in front of her fingers. She’s finger-spelling ‘S’.

Santana shakes herself out of the memories and nods. Her own hand raises in a flat palm. “B?”

Brittany grins and gestures for Santana to flip a page in the book.

“What’s...sign. Kiss?” Brittany tries to find it on the page but Santana closes the book.

Her lips meet Brittany’s and wordlessly she conveys they don’t need a sign for that.

~

 

With everything that’s happening Santana kind of forgets that the police are looking for Toby and the others. And by forget she means everyday she simmers silently and picks at her cast during the school day.

It’s really itchy.

“Lopez!”

However with everything that’s been happening Santana does actually forget about Sue Sylvester. Just don’t tell her that.

Sue marches down the hallway and students press themselves uncomfortably into the lockers against the wall. Several Cheerios stare at her expecting her to burst into flame or something because she’s not in uniform.

Sue inspects her casual attire that does at least consist of a Cheerio’s letterman jacket. It’s Brittany’s. The coach snorts and jerks her head to the sign.

“My office. Now. I don’t want people to think I actually care or anything.”

Santana falls in step behind her coach and lowers her head. Something about Sue ordering her around is comforting. It’s familiar and something she can deal with. She can deal with someone controlling her for a while.

She takes a seat in Sue’s office and waits for the woman to finish parading around her room. Her tracksuit is black, and has been variations of black since Santana, Puck and Quinn returned to school. Santana doubts that will change until Brittany comes back.

The trophies gleam a little less in her eyes. Sue’s hard demeanor cracks into something that could be considered ‘disturbed’ in some vague and extinct cultures.

“This sleepwalking through the halls?. It stops now.”

Santana, surprisingly, isn’t surprised. Sue leans back in her red cushioned chair and scans her appearance distastefully.

“It’s pathetic and frankly you make me want to donate one of my organs every time I see you in the hall.”

Santana raises an eyebrow at this.

“Not one of the good ones.” Sue suddenly leans forward and places an elbow on her desk. Her pointed finger comes to aim between at Santana’s forehead.

“People are starting to place bets on when you’re going to snap. That Berry-stalker with the blog?”

At the mention of Jacob Ben Isarel Santana tenses. Sue waves away her worries like she can read her mind.

“He’s got a countdown clock on his website guessing when you’ll go all Peter Houghton on this place.”

“I don’t know who that-” Santana starts weakly. Sue cuts her off.

“Of course you don’t. You’re in high school, you don’t read.”

Santana chooses not to respond. Half of it is true. Without Brittany by her side, Santana’s desire to keep the school’s social hierarchy in check has dwindled, and ironically as a result people are more scared of her than ever.

Apparently with Brittany at her side people were sure that there was some sort of restraint against her. Without her, there’s nothing stopping Santana from pointing Puck in the right direction of cocky sophomores who think just because she’s wearing a cast she can’t kick ass.

“Let me cut to the chase S.” Sue straightens a piece of paper on her desk. “You’re still captain because for some reason I can’t find anyone willing to topple you and I haven’t forgotten your past loyalties.”

The words cut her more than they should, but Santana sees something more as Sue continues her tirade.

“...and when B comes back, maybe Q if she loses the weight...”

There’s a difference.

“...you’ll do one handed handsprings...”

Santana has been a Cheerios long enough to see a quiver when one presents itself.

“...even if I have to break out the robotic arms...”

And Sue Sylvester had a quiver.

“Coach?” Santana asks. Normally such an interruption would have her fleeing from the room but Sue stops. She stops.

And then a wicked leer stretches out the wrinkles in Sue Sylvester’s self-proclaimed 30-year-old face. Santana hears her voice in her mind repeating the phrase ‘engorged with venom and triumph.’

“I took the liberty of buying you this morning’s paper. Here.” Sue tosses the black and white reading material onto the desk. “I’ve already requested it be framed and hung in the same cabinet as our nationals trophy. Or maybe Schuester’s coal mine of an apartment...”

Santana is struck by the bold printed letters and the torn emotions that rise up in her throat. She’s happy, but bile tickles the back of her mouth. She lets out an uncharacteristic pant of relief. Her posture slackens and she’s boneless.

Sue gleams down on the paper and the picture of William McKinley High School parking lot on the front page. There’s a sentence, there’s a date and there’s a double digit.

Hate Gang Arrest : Brutal Attack Condemned by Judge

 

“We got ‘em S.” Sue alleges. The lights in her office beam down on her in a glorious light. “And the bastard is going down.”

Santana can’t breathe. The secret desire she’s harbored for revenge will stay unfulfilled and a part of her rages. However, the rage is just a part of her guilt.

And the guilt is no longer entirely hers. Santana raises her head and lets the artificial light blemish her skin in a way the sunlight can’t touch anymore. She’s back.

~

 

News of the arrest spreads like wildfire and people are able to piece together the happenings. Sights like Santana’s arm and Puck’s head fuel more rumors and there’s a majority of musings about the missing Brittany.

Santana only lets it sink in when she’s back at the hospital after school.

Quinn is waiting outside Brittany’s room with a pensive look on her face. The door is closed.

“What’s happening?” Santana asks, bypassing a greeting. Quinn doesn’t seem to notice.

“Your parents are in there. B’s sister is flying back in but she’s staying with you when they discharge her.” Quinn informs her. Santana can’t believe the day has already arrived.

“That’s today?”

Quinn nods. “They’re taking off the old bandages and putting on new ones. I think they’re also setting up more ASL support and giving your parents advice.”

Santana moves towards the door but stops when Quinn grabs her hand. “I should be in there.”

“Not like this.” Quinn gestures to the way Santana is shaking. The leftover spirit from news of the arrest effecting her.

“Have you told her?” Santana asks. She wants to do it. Thankfully Quinn says no.

“Are you okay?”

Santana pauses. She is, but she isn’t. Her shrug is neutral. “I don’t know.”

Their joined hands force Santana back a pace and Quinn looks at her questioningly. “You wanted to-”

“Yeah.” Santana drops her head. She feels a slight of shame wrap around her thinking about it in hindsight. They’ve been caught. There’s no chance of her seeking out revenge on them for what they’ve done, for what Toby did, and the raging part of her is beating herself up for it.

Quinn’s hand boldly reaches out to soothe the frown lines in her forehead. Santana reluctantly doesn’t object.

“Toby denied it at first.” Quinn states with affirmation. Santana doesn’t step away from her hand. “He said he had nothing to do with it.”

“Well that worked out well for him.” Santana snaps. Quinn’s thumb stops tracing over Santana’s head and lingers by her cheek, not touching.

“But then they told him what the blow did to Britt and-” Quinn has to swallow before continuing. “-and then he confessed.”

“Just like that.” Santana is bitter.

“Just like that.” Quinn repeats. “The paper said he couldn’t live with lying about what he did to her.”

“They made him sound human.” Santana does distance herself this time. Quinn frowns. “He barely knew her, and they write him up as some sort of misguided soul who loved her.”

He was a stalker. He was a sexually driven stalker. Santana doesn’t even begin to imagine what could have gone wrong.

“He’s gone.” Quinn says firmly. “He’s gone and he’s never going to hurt her again. So you can’t beat yourself up over this. Okay?”

Santana remembers why she likes Quinn.

She nods stiffly and glances around. Confident that no one is actively paying attention to them she allows Quinn to hug her.

“Why do you always have to be the tough one?” Quinn whispers into her ear. Her arms are warm and Santana thinks it’s strange how she’s still expecting there to be a bump between them.

Santana scoffs into Quinn’s cotton clad shoulder. The answer is simple: she has to take care of the people she loves.

“Hugging isn’t a sign of weakness.” Quinn points out when Santana starts to fidget. “Embrace it.”

“I am, and it’s getting too clingy.” Santana jokes but holds on a second longer. When she pulls back her shoulders are a little lighter.

“Better?”

“Whatever.”

Quinn smirks in the corner of her eye and Santana feels like she’s starting sophomore year all over again. Except there’s a grateful lack of Finn Hudson.

Their hearts leap into their throats when the door clicks open and the doctor as well as Santana’s parents file out. Her Mami and Papi dab at their eyes when they think no one can see; Santana can see were she gets it from.

“Santana-” Her mother wrings her wrists before kissing her cheek and uttering some words that Santana is glad Quinn can’t understand. Her father presses his hand to the small of her mother’s back and tells them they can go in.

Quinn waits for her to go first.

She’ll never get used to the sense of foreboding that shadows her entrance. Santana’s just grateful that it’ll be the last time. Brittany is coming home. She’s coming home with her.

Brittany’s gym bag is bulging and packed on top of a neatly folded bed. All the other trinkets and items they; her, Quinn, Puck and Brittany; had collected in the 2 weeks she’d been under observation were stacked in plastic bags. The worn copy of American Sign Language, however, was open and perched on knees.

Santana proudly watches Brittany without alerting their entrance for a second. She takes it all in. Brittany’s thin fingers map over the pages and absently copy some of the signs. Santana can make out a few but Brittany is fluid in the transactions, more so than Santana feels sometimes.

Brittany hadn’t been joking about the ‘dancing for hands’ thing.

Santana possessively let’s her gaze wander along Brittany’s body and over her bent neck. The skin there is tempting. Blond hair bounces down over and Santana can see the full extent of Brittany’s injuries now.

The bruises are fading and a smaller bandage covers the main fracture but there’s not doubt where the injury is. Santana’s heart aches at the thought of Brittany seeing the right side of her head partially shaved. The hair there is still a dirty blond and her longer locks bridge over it.

Strangely Santana wants to run her hand through it.

Quinn moves into eye line. Brittany sees them.

Santana covers up her obvious staring with a wave and puts on a smile. Quinn busies Brittany with halting signs that suggest something like a drink and getting signed out. It gives Santana time to control her breathing again and marvel at how Brittany’s beauty outshines everything that is thrown at her.

Time flirts with the connection between them like the shy lovers they once were. Santana approaches and touches the side of Brittany’s skull. There’s a jut in the side and Brittany shivers. The little hairs under her fingers stand to attention and Santana wants them to be alone more than ever to indulge each others touch. Because that’s one line of communication they can understand perfectly.

~

 

Santana is more nervous that Brittany on the first day she comes back to school.

She’s been back for a month or more, practically sleepwalking through her classes and practicing her sign language in secret. People who used to give her a wide berth in the hallways before out of a kind of respect, now do it because they still don’t know if she’s stable in her mentality. She’d snapped and three freshman on her first day back who kept their eyes on her cast for too long.

But Brittany coming back is a whole different ball game. Most of the school now know about the attack; especially since Puck refused to wear any kind of hat and Santana being openly aggressive to people that so much as looked at her funny.

Other details like the fight have been exaggerated and passed around until Santana overhears in the library one day that she apparently started the fight with Toby and his friends included members of Vocal Adrenaline. She’d gripped onto her ASL book and drowned herself in music sheets instead of confronting them.

And the minority that actually know the truth; about the fight, about the causes, about Toby; consist mainly of the Glee club, teachers and half of the Cheerios.

All Santana can think about is how much she wishes she had both arms working. She fears for Brittany. She fears that people will take advantage of her, tease her and bully her because Brittany won’t be able to hear it. She won’t be able to defend herself and she won’t be able to fight back.

She won’t be able to answer questions. She won’t be able to join into fast paced conversations or hear what the teachers say to her. And it’s not because she’s too busy daydreaming or drawing sombreros on test papers anymore.

“S.” Brittany’s mouth moves and sound comes out. Santana holds onto the way her voice sounds because even if Brittany can’t hear what she’s saying, she can still talk, she can still talk to Santana.

Santana tilts her head and clearly asks; “What?”

Brittany, thankfully, has caught on quickly to lip-reading as fast as signing. Her reasoning being that she’s been watching people’s lips for years for different purposes so she knows her way around them.

The entrance to William McKinley isn’t as daunting as it had been a week ago, but Santana refuses to look over to the parking lot and accept that the remains of glass and blood are still present on the ground.

“We should go in.” Brittany says, and stumbles through the appropriate signs. Santana can read them. They’ll get better.

She nods and holds out her hand. They walk in.

The irony of the silence that greets them doesn’t escape Santana. She tucks her cast close to her body and glares at anyone who stands too close. Brittany has her hair up and an oblivious smile to those that spot the side of her head. She glitters over the crowds staring at her in such a normal fashion that Santana could mistake their entrance for any other day. She could pretend nothing was wrong.

No one says a word, and Santana hopes that it stays that way.

Their steps wait outside the choir room to Brittany’s visible confusion. The blond tries to pull up her hands to question her, like she doesn’t trust the slur on her voice in front of other people, but Santana stops her.

Her eyes beg her to ‘trust’. Brittany nods and pushes open the door.

~

 

Santana tells the Glee Club that the attack left Brittany deaf on the first Tuesday practice she comes back to.

Mr Schuester stares at her with such distress that Santana thinks she’s just said something equivalent to someone dying. She can see the music spill out of his soul and the thought of Brittany never being able to hear him again breaks him in a more personal way than a teacher should.

Quinn and Puck sit stiffly in the middle of the rest of the club, staring at her, willing her to not falter.

Rachel chokes. She, like Mr Schuester, sees the shattering dream of sound in her eyes. Artie’s hands grip at the wheels of his chair and Santana wonders if he gets it. Finn’s mouth drops dumbly and freezes. Mercedes and Kurt say something, but Santana herself feels unable to hear, she wishes it was her. She wishes it was her instead of Brittany.

It’s Mike that speaks.

“Is she coming back?”

Mr Schuester throws the questioning look to her as well. Santana’s right hand hovers over her cast.

“She’s coming back to school.”

She knows Mike well enough to see the pain in his own eyes. She knows how much he cares about Brittany. And every cell in his body is probably lurching and writhing and wondering what Brittany being deaf means? What does it mean for her future?

“What about Glee?” Mercedes voices. Kurt nudges her in the side, like they hadn’t planned to say that.

What about Glee?

Finn glances down from his chair at the back. “But is she alright to, you know-”

Santana’s eyes are like ice into his body.

“She isn’t broken.” Her voice rips out. Everyone flinches; this is the Santana they know. “She’s not defective Hudson.”

Mr Schuester mutters something to the tall boy akin to confirmation. Santana jabs her head to Mike.

“She can still dance.”

The light returns to his face.

“She’s still apart of this club.” Santana challenges. No one objects. It’s Brittany.

She sees Quinn shoot a look behind her, either to an unusually silent Rachel or to Finn sitting like a scolded child, before she stands out of her seat and moves towards Santana.

They agreed beforehand; Santana would break the news, and Quinn would propose the plan.

“Santana’s right.” Quinn turns to each of them. Rachel slides forward in her chair. There’s a realization in her eyes. “Brittany is our friend and she is coming back to Glee.”

Santana feels Quinn sway closer to her.

“So I think we all need to do something before she gets back.”

Rachel seems to be practically jumping out of her seat at this point and even Santana is mildly curious, and she came up with the idea. Quinn takes a stack of papers from Puck and passes them to Mr Schuester. His head ducks to read and for a few seconds Santana holds her breath.

There’s a watery gloss in his eyes when he nods.

“From the top then?”

~

 

The lights are centered on the different levels of the choir room floor. Santana guides a puzzled Brittany to the single chair placed at the front of the room. Her eyes are taking in the surroundings.

Santana motions to Mr Schuester who steps out from the side of the room. Brittany jumps a little on seeing him, not used to not hearing him approach, but Santana’s hand on her shoulder reassures her.

He waves his arm behind him and New Directions file out in two lines onto the levels. There’s no special costumes, no dramatic dance entrance and no monologues from Rachel Berry.

Brittany searches out for Santana as she leaves her to take a place next to Tina. Brittany looks incredibly small sitting alone in the chair. Passing thoughts and expressions from those next to her suggest similar reactions. They expect her to be up and moving; to be dancing.

Santana pushes it from her mind and hopes that she’ll be able to pull this off as well as they’d practiced. Or as well as she can with one hand to use.

Brad comes out of nowhere with the first strike of the piano.

‘Didn’t they always say we were the lucky ones?’

She knows Brittany can’t hear it, everything is blocked out, but the girl’s face changes in an instant when New Directions opens their mouths and raises their hands purposefully. She can remember the sound of their voices blending as one. Her expression is heartbreaking.

‘I guess that we were once, Babe, we were once.’

Artie takes the lead for the first chorus. Their hands move with a practiced ease in and out of signs.

‘And in the end when life has got you down. You've got someone here that you can wrap your arms around.’

Brittany’s eyes follow hands into words and everyone sings a little louder, a little stronger, because they want her to feel it. They want her to feel their music and their song.

Santana hates how she struggles to sign along with them. She wants Brittany to hear her louder than the rest of them. She means the words too much to not be heard.

‘So hold on to me tight,  
Hold on to me tonight.’

Everyone is conveying; they’re here for her, they love her, they will look out for her, they’re her friends. Their strength will be Brittany’s strength.

‘There's a thousand ways for things to fall apart  
But it's no one's fault.’

Santana remembers the look on their faces when Quinn had finished handing out the music sheet to them all and instead of lines and lyrics there were signs and pictures. She remembers a performance they once joined in with. And she taught them; she’s going to keep teaching them.

‘Maybe all the plans we made would not work out,  
But I have no doubt even though it's hard to see,  
I've got faith in us and I believe in you and me,’

Santana moves behind Tina and Kurt and walks through the middle of the lines next to Rachel and Finn. It’s all on her now. It’s all on her to make Brittany hear what she’s singing.

They have her back. In the weeks to come there won’t be a single person in the Glee club who Brittany won’t be able to sign with. There won’t be a practice in which Mike doesn’t get her up to dance. There won’t be a song that Brittany isn’t able to sing. There won’t be anything she can’t do.

Santana swings her arm behind her.

‘Take a look at all we've got,  
And with this kind of love.’

New Directions fades into the background and she can see Brittany reading her lips in concentration. The girl’s eyes are focused and her head bobs awkwardly as if she can hear the music, or just out of habit.

‘So hold on to me tight  
Hold on, I promise it'll be alright.’

Behind her they repeat the chorus in their hands, voices and hearts. Santana reaches out for Brittany and she stands. Drawn in by something she can’t hear. Santana feels like a siren, a beacon, and she’ll be that light. She’ll be that.

With every ‘Hold On’ she sings, she can see Brittany’s eyes water. With every ‘Promise’ she gets closer until there’s no way Brittany can see the others.

‘Don't you ever let me go  
Hold on to me, it's gonna be alright.’

Santana cries when Brittany smiles and brings her hands to rest against Santana’s chest. She feels the vibrations.

‘Hold on to me tonight,  
They always say we were the lucky ones.’

She doesn’t even mind that everyone notices she’s crying when Brittany kisses her. The piano fades and Santana feels it all burst in her chest because she is lucky. She’s lucky that she has this - that she has Brittany; she has this wonderful girl in her arms kissing her like there’s nothing more in the world she’d rather have. And Santana will be damned if anyone calls her out on crying because of it.

Their foreheads tap and rest. Santana feels Brittany raise a their hands together; she feels Brittany’s hand change and at a glance sees what is usually seen as a ‘rock on’ gesture. It’s not though. She knows that sign.

‘I love you.’

The Glee Club raises their hands in silent applause.

fin


End file.
